Mental Health Chair

David Giang is a third year student pharmacist at the University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy in Austin, Texas. He is originally from La Porte, Texas and graduated with a Bachelor of Science and Arts in Biology and Neuroscience from the University of Texas at Austin. During his undergraduate studies, he was active in the Longhorn Pre-Pharmacy Association (LPPA), where he ultimately served as President. It was during his time in LPPA that he was introduced to not only more aspects of pharmacy, but the Student National Pharmaceutical Association (SNPhA).

SNPhA’s mission of serving the underserved resonated with him and when he began pharmacy school, he knew that he wanted to get more involved. He has always been an advocate for volunteering and giving back to the community and SNPhA did just that. When he joined, he knew that he found his friends, his community, and his home. As a first year student pharmacist, he has been involved in his local SNPhA chapter as Social Chair and then as Mental Health Chair. Aside from the opportunities to serve the community, he really enjoys that SNPhA really is a family. On a local, regional, and national level, SNPhA members really embrace diversity and each other.

Outside of SNPhA, David is active throughout the College of Pharmacy in multiple organizations like APhA-ASP, IPhO, SCCP, SSHP, and PDC. He believes that it is never too early to get involved in your profession. In his spare time, David enjoys finding free events in Austin to explore, watching new movies, playing board and video games with friends, trying new restaurants and food-trucks, and occasionally dabbling in outdoor activities – which there is a lot of in Austin!

David is honored to serve as your National Mental Health Chair and is excited for the year to come. He is passionate about mental health and wants to work on de-stigmatizing society’s vision on this community. He also wants to make sure that student well-being is also included because students too, are part of the mental health community. We must be able to properly take care of ourselves before we can begin to take care of our patients. He wants to increase the number of chapters that have Mental Health Chairs as well as continue making connections with national mental health organizations to increase our affiliations and presence. It is an important role that we can take as student pharmacists in making our patients feel at home, comfortable, and that their voices are being heard. He hopes that we can work hard this year to find our Strength in Purpose within the mental health community.